GUATEMALA, CATAMARAN MARINA, RIO DULCE, LATE APRIL 2020

LIFE UNDER GUATEMALAN LOCKDOWN, LATE APRIL 2020, PART TWO.

We’re not in Kansas Toto. Some of the wildlife around us:-

Inbetween checking news both here and the Isle of Man we enjoy the wildlife and lush plants that surround us here. The gardeners have been laid off now for a few weeks and nature is reclaiming her land. The creatures that live here are less cautious with fewer humans on the Island. One surprise and delight to us that we had never seen before is the Basilisk lizard. Also known as the Jesus Christ lizard. I thought this alternative name was due to the fact that having a lizard of about 8 inches long suddenly appear virtually under my feet and sprint upright up the path caused me to exclaim “Jesus Christ!”. In fact, this monicker is due to the fact that these incredible lizards can sprint up to 7mph upon the surface tension of water with their widely spread webbed feet! They become quite tame, venturing out from under bushes and sipping splashed water from the pool.

Grasshoppers appear here too, from nowhere! Big boys too. These are, according to my research and I stand to be corrected, Southeastern Lubber grasshoppers. They’re very pretty wearing black and yellow edged suits, and are as big as the top of my thumb! They literally cover a few of the bushes, devouring leaves. I learn that they will eat the entire plant, they don’t fly, they can also hiss if moved and secrete a noxious odour. I found them peaceable and unperturbed by my proddings. One day they were gone!

Some of the wildlife is not so cute as the lizards and grasshoppers. Though I haven’t yet seen any we have boa constricters here, occasionally too snakes are found cosily wrapped up in furled sails or tucked into a dinghy. Scorpions and spiders share our territory too. One day as I went to go behind a cabana for a music practice a vast web was strung across my path to the cabana, right in the middle was an enormous spider, including it’s legs, it must have been over 18 inches wide! I found another cabana…..

The bold spider is right in the middle of the photo!

Beetles appear on the pontoon, sounding like mis-firing biplanes they land on the pontoon and appear surprised they survived their flight, and take time to recover before cranking up and taking off. These are Ceiba borer beetles, large and iridescent, glowing in the noon sun, it’s no wonder it’s nickname is the Jewel Beetle. My flipflop gives an idea of the size!

A shy creature around here is the Painted Turtle, so shy he or she is almost mythlike, so rare it is to see one. But one day whilst working quietly, for a change, we were lucky enough to see one basking in the sun, looking like a child’s art project with yellow stripes and circles painted under it’s carapace. Having hauled itself up the branch to enjoy the rays, our “Oooh, look it’s a terrapin!” frightened the poor thing and it fell into the water. We did see it on several occasions after that!

The terrapin is in the bottom third of the photo on a branch.

We are so caught up in trying to return home that it is all too easy to not see the beautiful creatures around us, in all the chaos the world is thrown into, these creatures continue their daily existence and we are so lucky to be part of their lives.

GUATEMALA, CATAMARAN MARINA, RIO DULCE, EARLY APRIL 2020

LIFE UNDER GUATEMALAN LOCKDOWN EARLY APRIL 2020 PART ONE.

Terry and I were entering our second month of Guatemalan lockdown, we’re all adapting to the new way of life. Catamaran Marina and the tourist cabanas are now quiet, most of the local staff with their ever ready smiles, laughter and greetings of “Hola!” have been laid off. We miss them. Fortunately there are still a couple of the catering girls here and a couple of the office staff here. A Navy boat patrols the Rio ensuring all obey the 4pm to 4am curfew. There’s always a scurry of lanchas and canoes when curfew time looms, if the two Navy boats are elsewhere, and the Rio is vast so they can’t patrol everywhere, we see the odd canoe being paddled quickly and quietly in the dusk after the curfew time. The Navy Officers are pleasant actually, they have a job to do, in fact Steve our Marina Manager often brings them pizza from the kitchen here, we get the impression the Navy’s job is a bit tedious for them at times just motoring up and down the length of the Rio Dulce and pizza helps relieves the boredom!

We hear now that the Honduras border is closed, and at Roatan Island cruisers aren’t permitted ashore anymore. Provisions and water are being brought out to the cruisers who sit an anchor along the Roatan coast, they are in a far worse situation than we are here, at least we can still get off our boats, even though now we wear masks around the Marina. We also hear that a National Park in Belize which has mooring has asked cruisers to leave as it has to close. Drastic times.

We are still allowed for the time being in between curfew to take our dinghy to go for a walk along what’s known as “The Pipeline Walk”. As we are not in contact with people or in the town, we take advantage of still being able to do this. We follow the path of the water pipeline laid down for a remote village and the path runs alongside a rubber plantation.

It’s peaceful and so good to stretch our legs. We see the village, there are just a handful of people and young children. It is interesting to see the rubber sap been drained from the trees into buckets. This walk is a welcome break from working on the boat and the same scenery!

Then it’s back to work. I clean out the cockpit, wash ropes, wash our saloon seat covers, the sail stack pack and service our winches, Terry services the roller reefing, teak oils the toe rails and cleans the hull, some day we shall lay up and go home.

Excitement! We have two new arrivals at the pontoons. New arrivals bring new conversation, news and mix up the existing dynamics in our cruising tribe. In fact there is even more excitement. It’s Tutty’s birthday. Tutty is one of our cruisers, he and his wife Muriel are Canadians we gather for a small celebration around the pool, birthday cake, beer, singing Happy Birthday and much laughter, of course we are obeying the curfew even here on our little Island so celebrations are curtailed at the curfew hour, good fun while it lasted!

The Guatemalan President Giamattei has issued new Orders covering Easter celebrations. Easter is a huge event here, festivals, holidays, visiting family and parties. The President realises Easter could cause a Coronavirus explosion and has stated that no alcohol will be sold in stores for a week. No going to the river or beaches where people gather and celebrate. We and other cruisers quickly dinghy to the supermarket and provision, the rules state no buying more than 3 items of any one thing, a good preventative for hoarding given the regular tightening of rules. Covid numbers are small 200+ in a population of 17 mill. At home in the Isle of Man we have 95 cases in a population of 85,000.

In an effort to cheer cruisers up over this latest news Terry and I wear our masks with sparkly sunglasses. Is that daft? Yes. Did it bring laughs? Yes. Mission accomplished.

And we need laughs now, as we are only allowed 6 in the little pool at a time. Terry and I take to having a swim, all 10 strokes before we’re grounded in the shallow end, at 7am. This new rule has it’s lighter side, as late afternoon before curfew we still gather for beers and exchange of news. We take turns in going into the pool, counting heads and announcing “Come out No 4, you’re time is up!” . We can of course still sit around the pool, even daring to dangle our legs in the water!

Our gang before the only 6 in the pool rule!

Whilst our cruising friends are contacting their Embassy’s for assistance and evacuation flights, Terry and I are also keeping an eye on the Covid situation at home, in the Isle of Man. Our Manx Government is making returning home as difficult as possible. We contact them for assistance, no response. We have to apply to return, and prove we are Manx residents! We email our Member of the House of Keys, the UK equivalent of House of Parliament, to ask for help, he advises he will chase the Manx Cabinet. The returning process is causing so much stress and confusion that a Facebook page has been set up to help and exchange information for those trying to return home to the Isle of Man. We are 7 hours behind which creates an additional problem. We spend an entire day inside the saloon on this repatriation farce. In fact, a lot of our days now are taken up with checking repatriation news and rule changes in the Isle of Man.

As it looks as though we’ll be here for some weeks yet, we dig out the BBQ to cook meat and ring some mealtime changes. One evening we cause some alarm and hilarity by nearby cruisers thinking we’d set fire to Sisu such was Terry’s enthusiasm in firing the BBQ up too quickly by pouring some really bad whisky onto the charcoal “to get the BBQ going” it was so bad it put it out!

Just to prove we have a Tan.